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Search: UNCLOS

02 Mar

...present analysis, must be read closely together. Italy and Malta breached their obligations under UNCLOS, SOLAS and SAR There is little doubt that conduct by Italy and Malta was in breach of fundamental provisions on search and rescue of UNCLOS, the 1979 International Convention on Maritime Search and Rescue (“SAR”) and the Regulations adopted pursuant to the 1974 International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (“SOLAS”). This is inexcusable. The question before the Committee, however, was only whether the ICCPR was breached. The preliminary question was of course...
02.03.21 | |

16 Jun

Last week, the states parties to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) held elections for seven of the 21 seats on the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). Here are the results: Among those seven members, Judge Wolfrum (Germany), Judge Akl(Lebanon), Judge Marotta Rangel (Brazil), Judge Chandrasekhara Rao (India) and Judge Jesus (Cape Verde) were re-elected and Mr Bouguetaia (Algeria) and Mr Golitsyn (Russian Federation) were newly elected by the States Parties. The biographies of the judges who were re-elected are available on...
16.06.08 | |

25 Nov

...of the Security Council in this area. Continuing on this “watery” theme, Ken Anderson wrote about a new set of amendments agreed by Mexico and the US to the 1944 Colorado River Pact and Julian Ku blogged again about Argentina’s claim under the UNCLOS against the seizure of its naval training ship in Ghana. In his post, he agreed with Matthew Happold’s argument that the ITLOS does not jurisdiction because this is not an UNCLOS question. Julian also pointed out that Colombia is already looking for alternative legal mechanisms to...
25.11.12 | |

04 Jun

...sovereignty claims are of course not subject to UNCLOS arbitration. But no one in China has really offered a particularly detailed explanation of how the sovereignty claims to the islands can justify the “nine-dash line” (see my earlier post here describing the nine-dash line claim) which goes well beyond a 12 mile territorial sea or the 200 mile exclusive economic zone. Thus, even if China had sovereignty over every random rock in the South China Sea, it can’t quite support the nine-dash line. I wish Chinese scholars would offer a...
04.06.13 | |

07 May

...the definition of piracy adopted by the Ninth Circuit cannot meet the Supreme Court’s “Sosa” standard for requiring ATS claims to be “universal” and “specific” under international law. I think there is some force to this argument, although I find their disparagement of the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea’s definition of piracy a little odd. In any event, the question may turn on the definition of “private ends” that UNCLOS requires as an element of piracy. I don’t have a strong view on this, but I refer...
07.05.15 | |

29 Nov

...sovereignty and contend that any claim to terra nullius status for the island should fail. Given Tonga’s status as an archipelago, I suspect there’s some merit to this position if one assumes the island emerged within Tonga’s existing archipelagic baselines (see, e.g., UNCLOS Arts. 46, 47 and 49, defining an “archipelago” as a “group of islands, including parts of islands, interconnecting waters . . . which are so closely interrelated that such islands, waters and other natural features form an intrinsic geographical, economic and political entity, or which historically have...
29.11.06 | |

11 Jan

When a country is brought to arbitration under a treaty, it often challenges the jurisdiction of that arbitral tribunal in arguments before that tribunal. But in recent years, we’ve seen several examples of countries that have simply chosen to “boycott” or not participate in the arbitral hearings whatsoever. China adopted this approach in its ongoing United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) arbitration with the Philippines (which it recently confirmed again this past December). Russia also followed this strategy by simply not showing up at the International...
11.01.16 | |

10 Oct

...already meet whatever obligations the United States will have under the treaty (I expect that to be the case, for example, with UNCLOS). In those cases, the non-self-executing character of the treaty is not a function of further congressional action, but of the Executive Branch’s own actions in deciding what the treaty requires and what U.S. law already does. Justice Souter took a different tack on the non-self-execution argument, asking whether the Court could be the entity to “execute” the Treaty, rather than Congress (p. 69). It’s an interesting idea,...
10.10.07 | |

01 Mar

Glacier Dear Julian, I read you post concerning Goodbye UNCLOS Dispute Settlement? China Walks Away from UNCLOS Arbitration with the Philippines I am very interested to find out that you said " They have never exactly spelled out what they mean by having “indisputable sovereignty” over the South China Sea." But as I found out what the Chinese said is always "China has indisputable sovereignty over South China Sea islands". Then I understand is the sovereignty is concerning the islands, not the sea. So if this is the case, I...
01.03.13 | |

10 Apr

Commentary on the Rules of the Tribunal, published in 2006 and contributed to by a number of ITLOS members, two views are presented: One, that there is no legal basis for Rule 138 since UNCLOS expressly confers advisory jurisdiction only on the Seabed Disputes Chamber, and the opposing view, that nothing in UNCLOS would preclude the ITLOS full court from exercising advisory jurisdiction. It seems highly unlikely that ITLOS would decline to exercise the advisory jurisdiction requested of it by the Sub Regional Fisheries Commission. In which case this will...
10.04.13 | |

01 May

...Around: How UNCLOS Ratification Will Herald Europe's Precautionary Principle as US Law. This article is intended to educate the American public about the complexity of the UNCLOS, especially its vast environmental component. It is also intended to prompt the American public to demand that Congress convene public hearings to investigate UNCLOS' environmental component. This article describes how US sovereignty and US individual constitutional rights can be subjugated to and overriden, under the right political circumstances, by foreign and international legal norms when US congressional representatives officials within the US Senate...
01.05.09 | |

17 Sep

BattleJAG Perhaps it was the juxtaposition of the UNCLOS and AUMF/Detention posts, but I see kindred arguments in favor of both. Although the U.S. Navy asserts that the navigational regime under UNCLOS reflects Customary International Law (CIL), nevertheless Iran (especially the prickly Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy) persists in harassing U.S. Navy ships engaged in transit passage through the Strait of Hormuz into the Arabian Gulf (perhaps to demonstrate Iran's persistent objection to U.S. assertions). Becoming a State Party to UNCLOS would put U.S. ships on a firmer footing under...
17.09.11 | |